This question came from our site for professional and enthusiast programmers.

Should be a community wiki!!
–
Mark BrittinghamMar 6 '09 at 12:57

Shoot - I forgot that I cannot rescind my close vote. Once you made it a wiki I was willing to take that vote back but...can't.
–
Mark BrittinghamMar 6 '09 at 13:10

This is moronic. Where are we supposed to discuss such topics??? And what on earth was argumentative about the question? I wasn't even stating my opinion on the matter - just open questions about etiquette. This is really annoying. Just reflex-closing on a valid question with no reason given.
–
Assaf LavieMar 6 '09 at 13:32

lol @ "closed as subjective and argumentative". I'll argue about the closing of the question but not the question itself.
–
QuibblesomeMar 6 '09 at 13:36

My opinion is that links in general are annoying. I'd rather at least get a summary of what the link points to.

I think the semi-wiki atmosphere of SO should encourage copy-pasting answers, especially if they are based on wiki posts, so that over time more and more complete answers could evolve to recurring subjects. Linking and marking questions as dups even when they're only similar to previous questions, on the other hand, may save storage space on SO's servers but would not benefit the site in the long run.

OTOH we could get weird behavior if copy-pasting other people's answers were the norm. A class of answer-copiers could emerge that only ever rehash other people's answers as a means of scoring points...

Copy pasting answers is just as bad copy pasting code! If the original answer was good enough let that stand on its own and just link to it. Why litter SO with thousands of duplicate posts? Not deserving of a downvote though, that wasn't me.
–
Jim PetkusMar 6 '09 at 13:58

What's wrong with thousands of near duplicates of an answer? I mean, most of the time these questions/answers are exact dups - they're 90% dups at most. So what's wrong with giving the same (good!) answer over and over?
–
Assaf LavieMar 6 '09 at 17:05

Ask yourself this: would you prefer to receive an answer that's 100% complete and informative immediately, or get a bunch of links to similar questions, none of which is really perfect for you? Us programmers don't like duplication of data, I know, but there's tons of duplication in wikipedia too...
–
Assaf LavieMar 6 '09 at 17:07

I'm with Assaf on the link issue. Link to the post/(web)page, and cite a relevant small piece of text from it to indicate the type of content found there. This makes it easier for anyone reading the answer to figure out if the clink is worth clicking on.
–
Lasse V. KarlsenMar 6 '09 at 19:40

Yeah, I want an answer that's 100% complete and informative immediately -- but if I find your copy-n-paste answer via google-search, and it's outdated because the source you copied from has been updated, but has lower google juice, I lose, because you were lazy. As in coding, copy-n-paste is bad form. It indicates that you wish to reuse something, but lack the desire to reuse it properly. If the original author updates the source -- wouldn't you rather those changes propagate to all other instances? A link performs this method, inasmuch as the www still sucks for hypertext.
–
Michael PaulukonisJul 17 '10 at 19:37

I think it's permissible, but I'd much rather hear what YOU have to say rather than just get a link to one of the top 25 points leaders. There's more diversity of viewpoint that way. Just my opinion, of course.

I'm with Olafur - the site is all about sharing so I don't mind at all if someone links to an answer that I've given. If citation is given, I don't mind them using my answers either. The bigger issue is whether it is Ok to gain reputation points for a mere link or quote. That, I think, is wrong but is easily fixed by making your answer a community wiki.

I find links essential -- if you are commenting on what somebody said in another answer, don't assume that it will be visibly close to where your answer will be viewed in the future. The viewer could be looking at the votes view (that's my default, usually) -- and the sequence is not guaranteed.

I originally did not link, and then reviewing my answers later (er, just maybe I was looking at upvotes, maybe), I saw that my "carefully crafted" response made no sense in the new context.

A potentially good solution would be to have a "hover embed" solution where you can point to another answer and have your own slant on it. When the user hovers over the linked answer, it would display like a tooltip.

I would think that it would take longer to try to find and reuse someones answer before someone else beat you to it with an answer from off the top of their head. Besides, if you have to reuse someone else's answer then you're probably dealing with a duplicate question anyway.

While I agree it's not nice to reuse another person's answers as your own...I just don't see it as a significant problem. Has anyone noticed this happening frequently?